The performance of salt farmer’s windmill from Demak for water pumping with low-speed centrifugal pump

Abstract

Abstract Wind energy is a renewable energy source. Windmill generally used to convert shaft power to electrical power for battery charging. Another benefit of wind energy is wind power for pumping, which usually called windpump. Indonesian salt farmer uses traditional windmill for pumping water for salt production process. The piston lever of the reciprocating pump is directly connected to the windmill shaft. This study will discuss the performance of salt farmer windmills from Demak region with a low-speed centrifugal pump. The variation used in this study is the number of blades on the windmill. There are four blades and two blades. Windmill shaft rotation connected to the AC generator shaft with permanent magnet and then produce electricity. The electric power from the AC generator connected to the DC electric motor, then the DC electric motor rotating the low-speed centrifugal pump. Data required for this study are wind speed, windmill’s shaft speed, and volume flow rate. The results are at wind speed between 2 – 4.5 m/s, a windmill with four blades and two blades has 0.13 liter/s and 0.21 liter/s. The daily average volume for four blades and two blades has 2901.6 liters and 4492.8 liters. The maximum of total efficiency of the windpump system with four and two blades is 34.06% and 37.32%.